


Harbor (Ten Years Ashore)

by DetectiveRoboRyan



Series: Intimate With Brokenness [3]
Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Fluff, I wrote this all in one night, Mae is Gae, Nautical Shit, RIP to Celica's Nipples
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-20 23:37:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11345490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DetectiveRoboRyan/pseuds/DetectiveRoboRyan
Summary: A year ashore. Celica misses the ocean.Ten years ashore. Celica returns to the sea.





	Harbor (Ten Years Ashore)

**Author's Note:**

> vienna teng owns my life heart and soul and i wrote all of this while listening to 'harbor' on repeat

A year ashore. Celica misses the ocean.  
  
Mae knows by the way she leans over the balcony railing with her shoulders stretched and her head back, letting the wind comb its fingers through her hair and remembering salt spray on her lips and sunshine on her chest, her shoulders, her collarbone.  
  
She doesn't miss the pirates— though her Celica would never hide when a fight's begun, Mae knows she's never savored the bloodshed and hazard of sea battles. Celica finishes fights, never starts them if she can help it (and clearly she couldn't help it with the first Necrodragon they fought). She's powerful but never cruel, and knows how to show off the power she weilds without hurting others without need.  
  
(Even now Mae sees her as less a queen and more a captain, striding across the deck with her dagger gleaming in the sunlight— or perhaps sprawled shirtless on a pile of grain sacks, napping not unlike a cat would. The first time she did that she burned so badly she turned red as her hair and had to sit in the dark covered in medicinal cream from the waist up for three days, and Mae can still see the mottled scarring that it left on her cheeks and nose, her collarbones, her shoulders. And Celica is still lovely, could never be anything but lovely, battle scars and awkward tan lines and all.)  
  
She's wistful. A year ashore and she's still yearning for the sea like it isn't a day's ride from her castle. Or perhaps that makes it worse, being so close and yet unable to stretch out her arms and feel the spray on her skin, feel the rocking of the waves beneath the wood of the boat. To Celica there is no feeling that feels more like home than rope and wood beneath her hands, lunches of fish and hard bread, naps on the deck where she wakes with a pillow under her head because Saber worries she'll get a crick in her neck if she naps with it back like that. Sea air in her nose and wind in her thick hair, tying it back with braided twine when she climbs the rigging and looks out at the waves.  
  
Two years ashore. Zofia blooms back to life. The air smells fresh and the orchards produce bounties of fruit once more. Mae hears dancing and music if she ventures into the city (though as Celica's queen-consort, she shouldn't without an escort. Mae ditches the escort at the first opportunity). Celica still aches for the sea.  
  
Three years ashore. They take a weekend trip out to the ocean and dig up seashells to take home, and a wind-mussed Celica with sunburned cheeks and sand in her hair is the happiest Mae has seen her since they docked.  
  
(Mae watches Celica lean on her easternmost balcony and stretch her chin towards the sunrise, trying hard as she can to remember the smell of the salt in the air, and the part of her heart that's still seventeen and too headstrong for her own good thinks that Celica, her Celica, is the most beautiful sight she's ever seen.)  
  
Four years ashore. They all call her Anthiese but to Mae she will always be her Celica. She withers when she thinks nobody is looking, or when something reminds her of what she misses about the sea.  
  
Five years ashore. They're stronger, older, wiser— a crown's a heavy burden to wear from seventeen, but Celica wears it at twenty-two with her back straight and her shoulders unbowed. She buckles during the nights and Mae holds her, whispers shanties she learned from her childhood on the Novis of another lifetime. Celica's crown is heavy on the heart, too heavy for how light it is upon the head.  
  
Celica traces the shells they brought from the trip with her slender fingers, still calloused from her time as a warrior. She practices forms she knows by heart when she has free time. Mae's taken up the dagger as something to do with no more spells to learn, but she could never bring herself to raise a blade to Celica.  
  
(And there's something about the sweat glistening off her sunburn-scarred skin, a tapestry of battles both won and merely survived, that reminds Mae, too, of riding the seas with naught but adventure on the horizon. Perhaps she was young and stupid, but there's something to be said for the high that excitement brought. She misses the sea more than she thought she did, looking at Celica.)  
  
Six years ashore. Mae feels the malaise of a journey long ended, and the weight of those lost upon her mind.  
  
Seven years ashore. The castle no longer feels as grand as it did those years ago.  
  
Eight years ashore. They visit the ocean again but it isn't the same. Mae rests her head on Celica's lap while Celica watches the waves lap at the shoreline until the sun has gone down and Celica's nail beds turn blue.  
  
Nine years ashore. The bed they share has never felt so empty.  
  
Ten years ashore and Celica steps down. Her shoulders are weary, too weary from bearing the burden of command for so long. She's too young to feel so old, to look upon her kingdom and feel nothing but sorrow— sorrow because she knows she is blessed, she knows her people love her, but the weight of the crown on her back is too much for her to bear any longer. Celica knows herself, and though she's as determined as she ever was, she's not going to bend herself until she breaks.  
  
Ten years ashore. Celica returns to the sea.  
  
Celica stands upon the deck of her ship like she was born to sail, salt in her hair feeling gritty but not unwelcome when Mae runs her fingers through it. She looks more alive in simple clothes and a cutlass in her hand than she ever did with a crown resting upon her brow, and to Mae she is beautiful— radiant, ethereal, magnificent, alive. Mae is always proud to be hers, but now is the time she looks upon those sun-kissed cheeks and vows, again, that her life is Celica's and always has been.  
  
The sails unfurl. Celica takes the wheel with a grace that only one whose home is the sea knows, stretches her shoulders and breathes in the salty air. From the dock, Mae watches the breeze card through her hair. She's the most wonderful, most sublime creature Mae has ever seen, and her heart still pounds when she sees Celica with pink in her cheeks and wind in her hair— pounds like they're seventeen and in reckless, hurtling love.  
  
Celica smiles at her and asks if she's coming. Bounding aboard the ship with energy she hasn't felt so strongly in years, Mae could never fathom leaving her Celica behind.


End file.
